August 27, 2005

• The “Mike as Sampson”  image used in this entry is a composite originally used for a blog entry titled “The Website Must Be Destroyed”  about dismantling certain portions of  my website, AllThingsMike, when I  ran out of server space. The following essay concerns the latest section of my website to be “dismantled”, the ElectricPoetry Group on the Yahoo service, which I closed down this past Monday.
  

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  Group Therapy Gone Bad

  
  

  
  

  
  

  An essay by Michael F. Nyiri 8/27/05
  

  
  

  In the end, the group had to be killed. Murdered. Massacred. I shall explain in a moment, but first let me tell you as I clicked the small boxes at the end of each “Yahoo Profile” name I cringed as surely as if I were in some nightmare where I was plugging each of my best friends with .45 slugs at close range. When I hit the “Are you sure?” buttons I was cutting off their heads with a sharp and unforgiving machete.

  
  

  The group had become a headache. I would grow exceedingly anxious, with palms sweating rivers over my keyboard as I called up the URL again, and my eyes waveringly focused on the latest of the “Angel Poems”, each time I visited the group with my website’s name on it.
  In the end, I gave up the “ownership” of the group to different moderators, and watched as they silently and defeatedly left the group, now knowing what to do. I watched from the sidelines, happy at last that I didn’t have to “comment” on any more Angel poems.

  
  

  In the end, the Angel poems were about all that were being posted, and when I received an email from the last exasperated “moderator” I knew the death knell had sounded. I could hear it clearly from the incessent bells in my head when I thought about Christine (not her real Yahoo profile name) and those poems.

  
  

  It was the poems that killed the group, Cock Robin. It was those dreaded and horrible Angel poems.

  
  

  Let me tell you that writing the above sentences have been a form of therapy for me. “Group Therapy”, if you will. I have written in the essay “The Pariah” about some of the times I have felt particularly bad in “group situations” on the internet. That essay details a particular instance from January when I felt I was being lambasted by a few members because I said one member’s particular works was not artistic. Most of the members of the group were immensely pleased with the comments and responses I would give concerning their poetry. But I can’t really describe the end too well without first giving a “short history” of the beginning. In the beginning, in 2000, the group was created as a haven for poets. I typed my “Group Message” into the Yahoo “club”, “ElectricPoetry”, in February of that year.

  
  

  “I have been writing poetry for over thirty-five years, and in 1999 dusted off the old volumes, and am still attempting to post my complete output on the internet. I would like to share my works with others, and hopefully inspire and enlighten. I invite all poets to come read me like a book, and add your own pages to our shared story of experience and inspiration. Your age does not matter. Only your willingness to love and feel love, and to rebound from your deepest depths with words. I love to write, and I love to read. These are two of the sweetest things one of us can share with the other.”

  
  

  In 2000, the internet was not as easy to manuever as it is now. The “club format” which later changed to “groups” on the Yahoo server, and which has duplicates on AOL, MSN, and other services, was like a “message board” for like minded individuals to share their thoughts. In my first month online, there were 73 posts, followed by 123 posts the next month. As part of my participation as group owner, I explicated each poem my members posted rather incisively and throroughly. I studied English Lit in college, a long time ago, and have written poetry for most of my life, so commanding a Club dedicated to the art was simple and simply inspiring for me. By August, however, I was a bit tired of the constant activity, and I have other pursuits, so as members, who were involved with other clubs besides mine, faded away, the club became stagnant.

  
  

  In 2002, I posted some of my current poetry on the Club boards, but nobody answered. In 2003, Yahoo changed the format to an email group situation, and two of my early members posted messages in order to keep the group online, so it wouldn’t disappear. As my internet interest comes and goes in cycles, I became more interested in interaction among my fellow online poets, and in late 2003 I joined about 6-8 poetry and friendship groups, and rekindled my participation in some of the past groups in which I retained membership.

  
  

  One of the most interesting and fulfilling of these groups was called “Short Stories for Daydreamers”, and there are internet correspondents with which I keep in contact who still “talk” about that group. The owner of the group was a writer, from California like me, and the strong point which made this particular group special was the participation of the owner. He wrote short stories, and his group was geared for short story writers, but he also welcomed poets and though he incorrectly told everyone he wasn’t a poet himself, his own stabs at the artform were very eloquent, and he constructed a “family” atmosphere, where one visiting the group felt as if he were transported to a large community “porch” on which all the members communicated with each other. Friendship and camaraderie among the members came first. Incisive critiques and assessments of the written words posted at the group followed quite naturally.

  
  

  I joined this group, and found myself joining the others on the virtual porch almost nightly. I began participating in my other groups as well, including a friendship group which had over 200 members, and whose activity could be quite draining at times.

  
  

  Suddenly, almost without warning, seemingly only short weeks after spinning  off a “Poetry” group, the owner of “Short Stories for Daydreamers” deleted his group. He posted warnings on both his groups that he was guitting because of time restraints and the fact he had just published a book of his own short stories. He had good reason to close down his groups, but this certainly didn’t placate the members, who felt as if the virtual rug had been pulled out from under them and the porch set afire. Since I was active in groups participation, I “dusted off” the two year old and stagnated “ElectricPoetry Group” and began inviting the members of the SS4D group.

  
  

  I posted my first “new” message on the Group message board in March of 2004.

  
  

  “This will be really silly if no one shows up. I know all seven will be here shortly. Hello to all of you who have come from the Poetry for Daydreamers site. Welcome. Welcome back if you were (are) receiving email from this long lost forgotten group which was to be my internet island of poetic abandon but that I let die. Welcome. I feel like the innkeeper opening the shutters of the inn after a long winter. A winter that lasted a couple of years. Welcome. Welcome back. Enjoy yourselves, get to know each other better, and post some poetry. I’ll be posting a few as I watch you show up. Yours in poetic dreams, Michael F. Nyiri poet,philosopher,fool”

  
  

  The first poem I posted was “Where Jesus Walks” which I had just written. Within a short time, I had over 40 members. The owner of the SS4D group had once told me that this was the perfect amount of members for a Yahoo group. If one has hundreds of members, the “family” aspect is missing, and with less members, the activity quotient is low. Besides the SS4D members, who now had a substitute for their earlier group experience, I invited members of groups to which I belonged that weren’t that active, and I invited poets I knew from browsing the internet in general. By the end of 2004. with nearly 50 members, and 20 or so active at any given time, I found myself as arbitrator of what some had been calling “the best poetry group on Yahoo.” I felt humbled and special. I would read and comment on each poem that was posted on my group, and my comments have always been legendary. Since I became involved with the internet, I treat message board posts, blog comments, and group emails, not to mention emails in general, as “letters.” I always strove to be a “man of letters” when younger, and “comments” and “responses” became my digital equivalent. My responses always began with a salutation, and concluded with my complete signature, including the “poet, philosopher, fool” tag which follows me around like a dedicated pet.

  
  

  Different “groups” of poets would come, go, be active, have writer’s block, and come back again. I wouldn’t let anyone “leave”. Every time someone would tear up their digital membership card, I was quick to write a long plea to return, and everyone who left during 2004 came back as a member. There was more involvement and camaraderie than ill feelings among most of the group members, and I was praised by most for being a concerned and fair moderator. In time, running the group became tiring, and even though I didn’t particularly like some of the work presented, I was always honest and forthright in my assessments. I really enjoyed running my “ElectricPoetry Group” even though I was upset sometime to think that nobody in the group really read my ElectricPoetry website, but just read the poems when presented on the Group. In time, I “used up” most of my “best pieces” and quit “constantly posting” poems, and I became more a moderator of other’s work, than a presenter of my own. I was inspired enough with this group to write 58 poems in 2004, more than I had written in what seemed like ages.

  
  

  Then I admitted Christine, the “Angelscribe”.

  
  

  Everything changed after that mistake.

  
  

  Since the moderator of the SS4D group had given me lots of “pointers” about running a group, at which he had been particularly good, I had placed the group on an approval basis, where I as owner had to “approve” membership. This kept out the internet telemarketers and gave me a sense of control. I don’t know where Christine came from, but I approved her, and her first postings seemed innocuous enough. Each group at any given time has what I call a “constant poster”. A person who writes prolifically, and when the other poets might be blocked, can be sure to keep the group active with new material. I myself had been “constant poster” in the beginnng, and two or three folks would take over that title as the months passed, and our “angel scribe” was the last one, and the last straw as well.

  
  

  Her “poems” were all themed around her misinterpretation of angelic dogma. Cherubs were children who had died prematurely. Every one who perishes becomes an “angel”. Angels play musical instuments, including electric guitars and accordians, in a “heavenly orchestra”. Her titles were similar to “Monday Angel,” “Thursday Angel”, “December Angel”, “Guardian Angel”, “Angelic Piano”, etc, etc, etc. After about three months of responding to all these “angel” poems, which were not only dreadful to read, but badly written, I sort of snapped, and found myself sweating when “forced” to attend to my own group. I became anxious and nervous, but I read and critiqued each “poem”, and no matter what I wrote concerning the poem at hand, I always received the same reply, “Thanks, I’ll “fix” it.”

  
  

  Christine was starting to rile the other members, and I didn’t stop people from leaving this time if they chose. I tried to cajole our angelscribe into leaving, but she wouldn’t have it. She would post the same poem with different titles, and deny that she’d posted before, even when pointed out by more than one exasperated member. I couldn’t delete her membership, either, as I had approved it, and when I would criticize the fact that she was posting far more than she was commenting, she began to comment, even though they were more of the “nice poem” type comments, I couldn’t find a “reason” to kick her out of the group.

  
  

  In time, I stopped commenting altogether, and I already had my Xanga blog by this time, so I was pretty well involved in other pursuits, and just didn’t want to deal with the “ElectricPoetry Group.” I wrote emails to everyone then acitve except for Chrisine. I expressed my total exasperation and let members know I wouldn’t delete her membership no matter how much I hated her poetry. Nobody wanted to see the group “die”, and one member had an idea to “take a vote”. If the majority wanted to “kick her off the island” he would do “the dirty work” for me. Needless to say, I felt somewhat conflicted at this turn of events, but decided to let the guy take his vote. I made him moderator, and in a few weeks, he sent emails to all the current active members, of which there were only about 10 at the time, asking them for their “vote”. I believe I was the tiebreaker, and I voted to “keep” her because I wouldn’t have been able to live with my conscience if I had done otherwise.

  
  

  In the few months following this turn of events, the poetry from other members slowed to a trickle. I wasn’t involved anymore. I wanted to delete the group, but other members volunteered to become moderators. I blogged about this episode in a News and Notes column here on WhenWordsCollide, with the subject of “asking for help”, something I rarely do in any situation until I have to. I didn’t need to “ask for help”. It was freely offered. I watched the posting count go from over 500 posts a month to less than 100 in a two month period. Last month, as mentioned in the beginning to this entry, two of the moderators left the group. I finally shuttered it last weekend. I wrote an email/post to all members and told them I would delete their memberships and to “gather up all their belongings” before the target date. I received replies from people who had not been active for months thanking me for establishing and running the group in the first place. I almost felt special again, and as previously noted, when placing the “x” in the little “delete membership” boxes of the members, I felt as if I were committing murder most foul.

  
  

  Now the angelscribe is somewhere in the heavens of cyberspace, and is not writing her angel poems on ElectricPoetry.

  
  

  I couldn’t take the “last step” and delete this group, with my “ElectricPoetry” brand name on it, so I merely deleted the membership, and wrote one last  message “This group is inactive.” In the header info for the group, I wrote “this group is ‘temporarily’ inactive. I might again start it up in the future. Who knows? Right now I am pleased with the readership here on my blog, and simply amazed that I not only retain readers, but seem to attract new ones weekly. I have an “ElectricPoetry Blogring” and hereby announce to any Xanga poets that I’d like you to join this blogring, which might contain the future membership of the “ElectricPoetry Group”.
  
  We only have 13 members in the blogring, and I just noticed I have to welcome a new member to the ring just now.

  
  

  In the end, the group had to be killed, but the murderer, while certainly not innocent, has, I think, been redeemed.

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